FORT COLLINS -- Green, white or pink--the Colorado State womens basketball team will win in any color.

On Saturday, the Rams recognized breast cancer awareness in their annual Pink-Out game against Air Force at Moby Arena, and they filed this one under blowout. The Mountain West-leading Rams handed the one-win Falcons their 15th straight loss by a final score of 88-28 -- giving CSU its largest margin of victory this season and largest since 2001 -- in front of an announced crowd of 2,209.

"It definitely could be easy to look over a team like (Air Force), but you have to know they are a very good team, they have good people, they have good weapons, (and) they're athletic," said senior Sam Martin, who led all scorers with 19 points in just 19 minutes played. "Coach really emphasizes no matter who we're playing, we're playing CSU basketball. He always says if the Lakers walk in or if LeBron walks in, we're playing CSU basketball, so that's really what our mindsets are no matter where we are -- no matter what court we're on, we play CSU basketball."

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The Falcons scored the first points of the game 15 seconds after the tip but never led again. After going more than three minutes without scoring, freshman Elin Gustavsson, who finished with 11 points on 5-of-9 shooting, hit the first basket for CSU as the Rams went on a 17-2 run to lead the Falcons 17-4 at the 12:57 mark and they never looked back.

The Rams had four players in double figures including Martin, Gustavsson (11), sophomore Emilie Hesseldal (10) and sophomore Hanne Mestdagh (11). Senior Camille Thompson led the Falcons with 14 and was the only player from Air Force to score more than six points.

Colorado State's Sam Martin (12) puts up a shot over Air Force's Lindsey Lewis in the first half Saturday at Moby Arena.
(Steve Stoner)

With the victory, the Rams completed the season sweep of Air Force, giving second-year head coach Ryun Williams a perfect 4-0 record vs. the Falcons. The Rams also notched their 14th win in their last 15 contests.

"You know it's a pretty good night when your bench gets more minutes than the starters," said Williams. "It's good to get kids who don't get a lot of minutes a lot of minutes, and I thought they performed well, so it was a fun game."

The starting five for CSU played a combined total of 92 minutes, while the bench ended the game with 108 minutes.

"It was a lot of fun; it was really just a team effort," Mestdagh said. "We started really well, and it's just fun to have everyone in the game. There is no pressure; we just have to play CSU basketball and it's fun when everyone gets in, everyone gets to score."

Williams referred to the second half as a "nice practice" for the reserve players, which is especially valuable at this point in the season.

"This is a tough time of year when you're playing a lot of games, you're still trying to get some rest, you have some travel in there; it's hard to get really good practice time," Williams said.

For CSU, 11 players saw playing time on Saturday. Sophomore Caitlin Duffy did not enter the game because of a minor ankle injury, but Williams said she is "fine" and probably could have played if she were needed.

The Falcons lost senior Cherae Medina to an injury during the game, which Williams said may have taken a little wind out of their sails to lose one of their leading scorers so early in the game.

"You don't ever want to see that; we wanted Medina to play the whole game and I hope she gets back," Williams said.

The Rams shot 56.9 percent from the field and held the Falcons to just 15.6 percent (7-of-45) in the game. The 28 points scored by Air Force were the fewest points allowed by CSU this season, who previously averaged 62 points allowed per game to opponents.

With 1:22 left in the game, the Rams pushed their largest and final lead to 60. With the win the Rams improved to 18-4 overall and 10-1 in the Mountain West, keeping them two games above Fresno State.

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